riddikilus
by fittedhatsandacaralarm
Summary: and they connected with a flurry of emotion, sending her mind spinning and her hair changing and his hands everywhere and oh, godric, this was so wrong, it was right, and…it couldn't be. / remustonks oneshot.


It was rather unavoidable. Tonks really hadn't planned on falling in love with Remus. It just happened, and now she was stuck. She'd never been stuck in her life. She could change her hair at will, her eyes, her nose, her weight, her everything. She was never stuck in anything. And now, she was. And, bloody hell, she hated being stuck more than anything in her entire life.

Couldn't he understand? Couldn't that hard-headed bookworm of a man understand that she loved him for him, not the monster he made himself out to be? Sure, he had his furry little problem. They all had their problems, every single one of them. They were all flawed; just because his flaw was a tad bit different didn't mean he had to distance himself from everyone and everything. That was just ridiculously silly. But maybe that was why they fit so well—she was ridiculously silly in her klutzy ways, her constant differ in looks, while he was ridiculous in the manner that he thought himself as a monster. They were like a Riddikilus spell gone horribly wrong, and no matter who stepped between them, the boggart would never change, never morph.

She assumes that's why she's sitting outside his flat, her hair windswept and that hideously murky brown shade, slumped over into herself, wrapped in a worn dragon skin coat that used to be Moody's and is much, much too big for her tiny frame. She'd forgotten where he kept his spare key, and had to wait for him to return, because she wasn't turning back. Not this time. She wouldn't let this lovely, amazing man slip between her chipped-black fingertips, not like she had let Charlie Weasley slip and slide and fall all of those years ago in school.

He doesn't know what time it is when he Apparates home, half-drunk off of firewhisky that Sirius had practically forced down his throat. All he'd done was casually stop by Grimmauld Place to check up on how he was doing (and ask for advice on Tonks because Sirius had _always_ been better with the ladies—except Remus would never admit that the pretty petite woman was the reason he went over there, to see Sirius, of all people).

She's fallen asleep, you see, her breathing heavy and deep, just a slight, adorable hint of a snore sneaking in as she inhales. The brown of her hair tints blue, then red, then pink, as she fades in and out of dreams, but never fully changing like it used to. Oh, how he misses his rainbow girl who really isn't his. With a glance at the crescent moon suspended miles and miles above them, he scoops her childlike body into his sturdy arms, kicks open the door, and carries her to his bed.

Remus lies awake on his uncomfortably hard couch that night, his hands folded over his chest.

Tonks isn't fully sure when she wakes up the next morning, but she knows that wherever she is most definitely isn't her cramped little flat. She doesn't dote too much on the fact that she's in a strange place. With books and a familiar smell of ink and parchment and coffee surrounding her, she knows exactly where she is without ever being there before.

She follows the smell of too strong coffee to Remus's little kitchen where he's leaned against the linoleum counter in his regular brown cardigan and trousers, sipping black coffee out of a chipped ceramic mug. It seems like everything Remus owns is second-hand or simply worn. She supposes that's what she loves about him, though. He's perfectly fine with second-best.

They're perfectly content for a while, him drinking three or four cups of coffee—she lost count—and her reading the Daily Prophet. It seemed that people went missing almost daily, and she was terrified it might be her or Remus next.

And then suddenly, the smooth, yellowed pages of the Daily Prophet are cascading to the kitchen floor, and she's staring him dead in the eye. He looks utterly confused, his eyes wide and searching her face, his newest cup of coffee centimeters from his whiskered mouth.

"Did something happen and I missed it, Dora?" he asks in a rather befuddled tone, his eyebrows knitting together. She slowly shook her head, staring blankly at the plastic, magnetic letters on his refrigerator door, rearranging them in her mind to fit different words.

"No, I just had a…a…oh, I don't know what you bookish people call it. A realization, I guess."

"You mean an epiphany?" Remus asks almost instantaneously. Tonks's head snaps up and she nods, his hazel eyes meeting her flat brown ones. He thinks, for a split-second, he sees a glimmer of their normal blue, but he can't be sure. He can never be sure with Tonks.

"Yes, that's just the word," she murmurs. "But, anyways, my 'epiphany' was…you're never going to be happy with me. Not truly. You could be, Remus, you could! But you won't let yourself. And it's so bloody frustrating! But, you're never going to properly love me and—" her voice catches in her throat as shining tears fill her eyes. Her eyes have travelled back down to the squares of the floor, following the lines between them, until they reached the holey toes of his off-white socks, up his dark trousers, up, up, up, until she was staring at him dead in the eye "—it kills me, Remus."

She can almost see the conflicting emotions, battling in the depths of his eyes. He's so confused, and suddenly, she's more worried about him than she's ever been before.

Remus wants to reach out and grab her and kiss her until they both can't breathe and the next morning Moody finds them both dead on his kitchen floor, surrounded in shards of ceramic and puddles of coffee and a stained copy of the Daily Prophet.

But he knows he can't. He can't, and he won't, and he shouldn't, and he couldn't, and…

Oh, Godric, she looks so helpless, standing there in the corner in Moody's jacket and her hair all tousled and her makeup smeared and her eyes glimmering with fresh tears, the other ones already sliding rapidly down her cheeks, creating black, curving lines on her face.

"The thing is, Dora," he began slowly, setting his coffee down on the counter and thinking for a moment. "The thing is, I wish I could be happy. And I wish I could love you properly, because Godric, I love you. I love you more than anything. I just…can't. And I shouldn't."

And they connected with a flurry of emotion, sending her mind spinning and her hair changing and his hands everywhere and oh, Godric, this was so wrong, it was right, and…it couldn't be.

He pushed her away, his arms trembling.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Tonks. I-I shouldn't have—"

"Marry me," she chokes out through the tears cascading down her heart-shaped face. She doesn't know what she's thinking, or why she's proposing, or how the thought even occurred to her.

But she is, and she can't change it now.

"W-What?" Remus stammers out, utterly confused.

"Marry me, Remus! You say you love me! I love you! I love you, I love you, I love you, and it bloody hurts! Marry me so we can stop _fucking_ hurting!" she screams, frustration laced in her voice echoing off the thin walls of his flat.

**-:-**

Six months later, with a baby on the way and Moody the pastor at their ridiculously small wedding, their boggart has morphed into something totally new.

**[For my bestest friend Raegen over on Polyvore! I should have written this a long time ago, sorry. However, I might continue this…make it multi-chap. Who knows. Let me know? :3]**


End file.
